The Promissory Note 1947 In a rounded, reeling rune, 'Neath the moon, To the dripping and the dropping of my tears. Ah, my soul is swathed in gloom, (Ulalume!) In a dim Titanic tomb, For my gaunt and gloomy soul I am shredded, shorn, unshifty, (Oh, the fifty!) And the days have passed, the three, Over me! And the debit and the credit are as one to him and me! 'Twas the random runes I wrote At the bottom of the note, (Wrote and freely Gave to Greeley) In the middle of the night, Danced with dim and dying fays, O'er the dimeless, timeless days, When the fifty, drawn at thirty, Seeming thrifty, yet the dirty Lucre of the market, was the most that I could raise! Fiends controlled it, (Let him hold it!) Devils held me for the inkstand and the pen; Now the days of grace are o'er, (Ah, Lenore!) I am but as other men; What is time, time, time, To my rare and runic rhyme, Where the tempest whispers, "Pay him!" and I answer, "Nevermore!" Bayard Taylor [1825-1878] MRS. JUDGE JENKINS BEING THE ONLY GENUINE SEQUEL TO "MAUD MULLER AFTER WHITTIER MAUD MULLER all that summer day Yet, looking down the distant lane, But when he came, with smile and bow, And spoke of her "pa,” and wondered whether Old Muller burst in tears, and then For trade was dull and wages low, And the "craps," this year, were somewhat slow. And ere the languid summer died, Sweet Maud became the Judge's bride. But on the day that they were mated, And Maud's relations, twelve in all, very And when the summer came again, Mrs. Judge Jenkins And the Judge was blest, but thought it strange For Maud grew broad, and red, and stout, Was more than he now could span; and he How that which in Maud was native grace And thought of the twins, and wished that they On Muller's farm, and dreamed with pain And, looking down that dreary track, For, had he waited, he might have wed For there be women as fair as she, Alas for maiden! alas for judge! And the sentimental,-that's one-half "fudge"; For Maud soon thought the Judge a bore, With all his learning and all his lore; 1949 And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair face For more refinement and social grace. If, of all words of tongue and pen, The saddest are, "It might have been," More sad are these we daily see: "It is, but hadn't ought to be." Bret Harte [1839-1902] THE MODERN HIAWATHA From The Song of Milkanwatha" He killed the noble Mudjokivis, He, to get the cold side outside, Put the warm side fur side inside: George A. Strong [1832-1912] HOW OFTEN AFTER LONGFELLOW THEY stood on the bridge at midnight, The moon rose o'er the city, Behind the dark church spire; The moon rose o'er the city, And kept on rising higher. How often, oh! how often They whispered words so soft; How often, oh! how often, How often, oh! how oft. Ben King [1857-1894] "IF I SHOULD DIE TO-NIGHT AFTER MEYERS IF I should die to-night And you should come to my Weeping and heartsick o'er my lifeless clay- Culture in the Siums And you should come in deepest grief and woe- If I should die to-night 1951 And you should come to my cold corpse and kneel, And you should come to me, and there and then I might arise the while, But I'd drop dead again. Ben King [1857-1894] SINCERE FLATTERY OF W. W. (AMERICANUS) THE clear cool note of the cuckoo which has ousted the legitimate nest-holder, The whistle of the railway guard dispatching the train to the inevitable collision, The maiden's monosyllabic reply to a polysyllabic proposal, The fundamental note of the last trump, which is presumably D natural; All of these are sounds to rejoice in, yea, to let your very ribs re-echo with: But better than all of them is the absolutely last chord of the apparently inexhaustible pianoforte player. James Kenneth Stephen [1859-1892] "O CRIKEY, Bill!" she ses to me, she ses. "Look sharp," ses she, "with them there sossiges. Yea! sharp with them there bags of mysteree! For lo!" she ses, "for lo! old pal," ses she, "I'm blooming peckish, neither more nor less." |